Fly over the southern lights in the space station

A time-lapse video from the International Space Station features a flyover of the southern lights.

It's been a great summer for auroral displays, and especially from space. Here's a time-lapse video showing the International Space Station's passage over the southern lights on Sept. 11. The tour begins with the station arcing southeast over eastern Australia, passing over New Zealand and then heading northeast in its inclined orbit. There's a dense cloud cover over Earth's surface, but that just makes the ripples of green light stand out even more.

North or south, auroral lights are sparked when electrically charged ions from the solar wind interact with atoms in the upper atmosphere. In an advisory about the video, NASA notes that green is the most common auroral shade, coming from the light emitted from emitted oxygen atoms. Flashes of red show up here and there. You can also see a golden glow visible along the rim of the atmosphere, just above the curving horizon. That airglow is caused by the excitation of atoms by ultraviolet radiation.